more about peaches

How's that for a straight forward title. Yesterday and today have been all about peaches. So far, 38 pounds of peaches has broken down into 2 quarts and 12 pints of canned peaches, 12 1/2 jelly jars of peach jam (that 1/2 jar was eaten up lickety split by Miss Eva who then ate almost another whole jar of jam that night. She loves it!), one peach-blueberry crisp, another one waiting to happen on the table (a few peaches are still ripening and are destined for crisphood), a few eaten here and there, tasted and nibbled, and a few that went directly to the compost pile due to excessive (un-cut-out-able) mold. Not bad. I am feeling positive enough to pick some more at this point and see what happens. I would love to can some more and I would love to have enough around to make a couple of smoothies and some juice (what with the watermelon so abundant and all).

I was tasting the peaches as I prepped them for canning today (to make sure they were can-worthy, you know) and was struck once again by how the flavor can vary so much from one peach to the next. Peaches are one of those fruits that can be so earthshatteringlydelicious that the taste brings tears to my eyes. Others are mealy and blech, inedible. There were definitely a few in the batch I picked on Thursday that turned out to be so extremely peachy I thought I would have to sit down to fully appreciate their flavor. That good. Definitely of the tears-to-my-eyes variety. It is at times like these that I am struck by just how good life can be and it turns out you really don't have to look any further than the peaches ripening on your table to show you the way.